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Things happen for a good reason

Sibirsky

Well Known Member
Last week , on take off , right around 60 knots I felt a slight vibration , I did an RTO and as soon as I exited the runway , the plane felt like it was taxiing on mud , it was after 6 pm , made a few phone calls , no answer , my mechanic said he left and was close to his house , the field is uncontrolled , there was a 172 doing touch and goes , he radioed a phone number which I called right way , within 10 minutes two guys showed up , ED's aircraft refinishing and his buddy Jay , they tried to inflate it but the tube was bad , they went back to their hangar and got me a spare nose wheel , I taxied it back and as soon as I parked , I saw this massive patch of Fog rolling in ( unforcasted ) I kid you not , within 15 minutes the field was IFR , 200 ft ceiling , mist and 1/4 mile visibility , im glad I didn't fly that day , I am instrument rated but the airplane is not ! I was planing on doing a night flight with a landing/taxiback at JFK . Things happen for a good reason , I stayed at the airport untill 20:30 , kept listening to the ATIS as the weather was worsening .


multiple picture upload
 
Ahhh good old Brookhaven Airport, Ed is a great guy.. as is Matt working the radio if he?s still there.. Yeah, you have to watch the TAF out there on Long Island.. if the temp/dew point is close, it?ll fog in quick on you when the sun goes down! Then you?ll have to divert across the sound to CT... Glad you got it off the ru way without damage!
 
Same front flat tire thing happened to me on my 3 legged long cross country during my private pilot training. Landed at my first airport and the whole plane was shaking. I managed to coax it onto a taxiway and shut it down. Told the tower what was wrong and they called maintenance which replaced the tire to get it back to their shop. Turns out there was no hole in the tire. The owner(my flight instructor) had filled the tires that morning and didn't get the cap on right or caused a stem issue. Somehow it leaked enough to cause me a very exciting landing. I was glad I was able to get off the runway because there was a corporate jet doing training. They did about 4 landings while I was waiting for maintenance to show up. I'm also glad I didn't have the weather issue you had.
 
Just so you know...the way to take the nosewheel fairing off is to remove the two big hex-head bolts for the towbar, which conveniently fix the brackets to the fork, and then simply slide the aft part of the wheelpant off. No need to undo the screws holding the fiberglass to the mounting brackets.
 
I've had 3 nose wheel flats over the years, 2 were found the day after returning from major trips, lucky or what! The last was a week ago taxiing out to the runway, again lucky it happened at my home airport. Airport manager thought it funny I had an extra wheel/tire assy laying around and was able to get changed out and going again in less than half an hour.
 
If ya'll would just keep air in the tires perhaps you would stop having all these flats :eek:
 
If those crappy Cheng Shin tires didn't have the little **** moulded inside the side wall of that tire, I wouldn't have had those two first flats. I ground it smooth & had no further problem with it from then on, but I don't use that brand tire any more.
Air pressure was no match for the little piece of safety wire that took out the last one......
 
Out of curiosity, why did you have to call for help? Were you not at your home base? Or are you not familiar with changing tires and tubes?
 
Ahhh good old Brookhaven Airport, Ed is a great guy.. as is Matt working the radio if he?s still there.. Yeah, you have to watch the TAF out there on Long Island.. if the temp/dew point is close, it?ll fog in quick on you when the sun goes down! Then you?ll have to divert across the sound to CT... Glad you got it off the ru way without damage!

Thanks Tom ,
Ed is a great guy , he painted my RV , it took him close to two years , but his workmanship is excellent , Matt is still at HWV as well , he taught me to use Camguard and Marvel mystery oil !
 
Just so you know...the way to take the nosewheel fairing off is to remove the two big hex-head bolts for the towbar, which conveniently fix the brackets to the fork, and then simply slide the aft part of the wheelpant off. No need to undo the screws holding the fiberglass to the mounting brackets.

Thank you ! I had no idea , I always struggled to remove the fairing , now I know !
 
Out of curiosity, why did you have to call for help? Were you not at your home base? Or are you not familiar with changing tires and tubes?

Due to Covid 19 , the guy who worked the radio at the airport left at 3 pm ,
it was past 6 pm , the airport was deserted , I had no tools , no tubes , absolutely no idea how to take the nose wheel off and i certainly couldn't have done it alone even If I had the means , when the two guy showed up , I had to push the tail down to lift the nose for about 20 minutes while they worked the problem .
 
Had this happen two weeks ago on the nose after carrying out two high speed taxi tests in our club RV-9A.

Tubed / runflat tyre inflated to 45 PSI immediately prior to engine start. Grateful the tyre walls were thick enough to carry the load making the defect almost imperceptible.

Bearings had been regreased the day before. Retorqued and pull off check carried out as per Van's docs. Replaced the tyre and tube, reassembled everything as before and have had two RTOs and eight successful landings since.

If not tyre pressure, then what?

This happened to a friend in his RV7A two weeks earlier, prior to departure. He had the thin walled tyre and found himself struggling to move under normal power settings. Could have turned into a disaster had it lost pressure after takeoff. Same deal, replaced the lot IAW Van's instructions and the day continues.
 
The ultimate answer is put the wheel in the back!...:D


Yes! Thank you for saying it! Someone had to! Another good idea is to only adjust tire pressure the day before you fly, not right before takeoff.. often if the valve leaks, you'll only find out on landind, but if you do it a day or two before, you'll see it before you takeoff!
 
Last week , on take off , right around 60 knots I felt a slight vibration , I did an RTO and as soon as I exited the runway , the plane felt like it was taxiing on mud , it was after 6 pm , made a few phone calls , no answer , my mechanic said he left and was close to his house , the field is uncontrolled , there was a 172 doing touch and goes , he radioed a phone number which I called right way , within 10 minutes two guys showed up , ED's aircraft refinishing and his buddy Jay , they tried to inflate it but the tube was bad , they went back to their hangar and got me a spare nose wheel , I taxied it back and as soon as I parked , I saw this massive patch of Fog rolling in ( unforcasted ) I kid you not , within 15 minutes the field was IFR , 200 ft ceiling , mist and 1/4 mile visibility , im glad I didn't fly that day , I am instrument rated but the airplane is not ! I was planing on doing a night flight with a landing/taxiback at JFK . Things happen for a good reason , I stayed at the airport untill 20:30 , kept listening to the ATIS as the weather was worsening .



I see you didn't have a cloud in the sky and that has caught many by surprise. As someone said, check temp/dew spreads around you and don't do it once, do it a couple hours before and then an hour before then right before. Look for trends !!

When I flew EMS helicopters I never got stuck away from home due to fog because I looked for trends. Others would like to sleep and when the call came in they'd look once and take off only to be stuck away from home somewhere because they couldn't return. If they had been watching the trends they wouldn't have taken off to begin with.
 
I'm glad it worked out for the best, Sibirsky. Things like that make you glad that "someone is looking out for you". I'm not sure if my experience with the tiny little 11-400 X 5 8 PLY Lancair tires will translate over to your bigger ones, but here goes: I've always run Cheng Shin tires and tubes and never had any problems. I use talc on the tubes. My nose tire/tube are the same ones I've been flying with for 6 years (The tread is almost gone so I'll be changing them at the next Annual.) My mains don't last nearly that long because braking eats them up. I have to stay off the brakes above 45 KIAS lest I flat spot a tire. I run 50 PSI in all three and never have experienced shimmy on the nose (Oleo strut). I used to carry a spare wheel all ready to bolt on, but now I just carry a spare tube and some CO2 bottles.
 
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